


Bare

by editingatwork



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: AU: Teenagers, Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Funeral Mention, It has a happy ending I swear, Las Vegas, M/M, Motel, Skinny Dipping, cancer mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editingatwork/pseuds/editingatwork
Summary: Kent goes skinny dipping, kisses a boy, and finds a light in the darkness.





	Bare

The sign on the gate says KEEP OUT! but Kent has been jumping fences since he was eight. Besides, if the motel really wanted to keep people out of the pool after hours, they should have put in a taller fence. A determined toddler could probably scale it. Kent has no trouble vaulting himself over. 

The pool area is tiny; just enough space for a couple of lounge chairs and a table with a folded umbrella. Kent saw pool lights on earlier that evening but there aren’t any now. The only light is coming from the parking lot on the other side of the motel and the full moon, which is halfway blurred with clouds. Most of the windows in the motel are dark. Those that are lit have the curtains closed. With so little illumination over the pool area, nobody will see him here unless they look closely.

Kent pulls off his t-shirt and the sweatpants he’d gone to bed in. He puts them in a pile on a lounge chair, with his phone tucked into his pocket. The screen says 2:35am. His parents will kill him if they wake up and catch him gone. He’s not sure if it’d be better or worse if they didn’t. He’d just wanted to not be in there, in bed, the place where people are supposed to be at two in the morning. Kent thinks about his little brother, still asleep in the queen bed Kent had left behind. Davie is about the age Kent was when he started to notice that his parents were having problems.

This vacation to Vegas is supposed to be a last-ditch effort to prove they’re still a functional family. Kent thinks that the fact of him being here, pulling his boxers off so he can go skinny-dipping in an empty pool at two in the morning rather than spend another second in the same room as his family, is clear proof that they haven’t been “functional” for a long, long time.

He resists the urge to cannonball into the water. Instead he takes the stairs, hissing through his teeth at the biting chill. Shit, but it’s cold! He didn’t expect it to be so cold. The night air isn’t exactly warm, either. Going slow is excruciating; he ends up cupping his dick and balls just to keep them out of the water.

 _Fuck it,_ he thinks, and dunks himself. It’s cold, cold,  _cold_ , Christ, and Kent expels a lungful of air underwater to yell at the shock of it. He comes up for a quick breath and goes back down, starts swimming just to get his blood moving. It’s almost pitch black; even with his eyes open, all he can see is a blurry void. He keeps his hands in front of him, lest he knock himself out against a wall and end up on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper, a dead body floating ass-up in a motel pool just six blocks from the Vegas strip.

Although, if he’s honest, that wouldn’t be a horrible way to go. Not in Vegas, anyway.

Carefully he circles the pool a few times. He doesn’t get warmer, but he doesn’t get colder, either. He thinks he’s still got a while before his teeth start chattering.

The moon is fully out and the sky is dull gray behind it. No stars; the lights of Vegas wash them out. Kent wonders if people on other worlds can see the lights of Vegas, if the city burns like a beacon so bright that lightyears away, it becomes a star.

Kent is floating on his back gazing at the moon when a muffled sound reaches his ears. Quietly, he rights himself, and yes—that’s the sound of someone pushing open the rusty gate to the pool.

Shit, shit,  _shit_.

He tries to float his way to the pool’s darkest edge.

“Hey!” a voice hisses. “Someone here?”

Before Kent can duck away, a smartphone light illuminates the pool. Kent throws up an arm to block the worst of it, but his eyes smart from the sudden brightness. His heart feels like it’s beating out of his chest. Wildly, he thinks,  _They can’t arrest me for public exposure if I’m seventeen, right?_

“I see you!” The voice is still speaking quietly. It’s Kent’s first clue that maybe this isn’t an employee or the police. “What you doing here?”

Kent manages to block the source of the light with his hand and get a peek at the person. Male, definitely. Broad shouldered and tall. Kent’s heart beats a little bit faster, fear flooding him. He’s suddenly very aware that he’s alone and naked in the dark. “I’m just taking a swim, man. What are you doing here?” he throws back, keeping quiet.

The light lowers. Kent still can’t see him, but he’s fairly sure the guy is his age. “I’m stay motel,” the guy says. Yeah, he sounds young. “You’re—what’s English? Homeless?”

“No, I’m not fucking—” Kent lowers his voice. “I’m not homeless. I’m staying at the motel. How do I know you are? Show me your keycard.”

The guy frowns and digs through his pocket. He holds up the keycard and shines the phone light on it so Kent can clearly see the motel’s logo on the back. “Show me you.”

“It’s with my stuff,” Kent says, like an  _idiot_ , because now the guy is looking around for Kent’s things and if he decides to steal Kent’s phone, there’s literally nothing stopping him. “Look, I’ll just get out and leave you the pool, okay? Swim all you want.”

“Okay,” the guy says, and then just stands there, waiting.

Kent’s body is getting cold but his face is red hot. “Can you turn around? I’m not showing you my dick.”

The guy’s eyes go wide. “You swimming naked?” A smile creeps up his face and he laughs. “You swimming naked in motel pool at night? You crazy!”

“It’s called skinny dipping,” Kent grumbles. “You’ve never done it?”

“Sure,” the guy says. He turns his phone light off and sits on the edge of the pool, pulling off his shoes and socks so he can dip his feet in the water. “Do at lake at home, in Russia. Every summer, all friends come, we swimming naked. How’re you say in English?”

“Skinny dipping.”

“Skinny dipping,” the guy repeats. He eyes Kent through the water, although Kent takes comfort in the fact that it’s too dark to see anything. “You not skinny.”

“Stop trying to see my dick, you pervert.”

“Who is pervert? I’m not swimming naked in motel pool.”

“Oh yeah? You were gonna swim in your boxers?”

In response, the guy tugs at his shorts. “Is swim suit.”

Kent rolls his eyes. “Guess you’ve thought of everything. Anyway, I’m freezing my ass off, so if you could close your eyes for a sec, I’m gonna go.”

It’s a relief when the guy obediently does so. “You have towel? I bring, if you need.”

Shit, Kent  _knew_  he was forgetting something. “No, I’m fine.”

“Okay.” They fall into silence. Kent swims to the edge of the pool, as far from the guy as he can get while still having a direct route to his clothes. He’ll soak them through, but he only needs to make it back to the motel room.

“Can stay, if you want,” the guy says suddenly. “Don’t mind if you naked.”

Kent has two hands on the pool’s edge, ready to haul himself out. “Yeah, well  _I_  mind.”

“You have boxers? Can wear.”

Kent hesitates. Then he climbs out, goes to his clothes, and grabs his boxers. They stick to his skin as he pulls them on.

He doesn’t reach for the rest of his clothes.

He doesn’t want to go back yet. He came out here to escape reality and lose time; do something abnormal, crazy. Going back to bed would be smart. He doesn’t want to be smart. He wants to be a rule-breaking, risk-taking idiot. He wants to do something he can’t take back.

His family is cracking under the strain of holding itself together. Kent just wishes they’d let it shatter.

“Yeah,” he hears himself saying. “Yeah, okay.” Back to the pool, and this time he walks up to the stranger and sits down. Holy shit, this guy is even bigger up close. Gangly in the arms and legs, the way teenagers are—and this guy is a teen, Kent’s sure, he knows his own kind—but muscled and strong. He turns to look at Kent, dark eyes blinking open. Fuck, he’s pretty. He could also probably knock Kent’s lights out or drown him. It feels stupid to hold his hand out to a guy like that, someone he doesn’t know, but that’s what Kent does. “I’m Kent,” he says. “Fancy a swim?”

Kent is met with a grin, and a warm hand in his. “I’m Alexei,” is the reply. “Okay, we swim.”

The water feels even colder when Kent slips back in. Sitting out in the open air had given him goosebumps, and now he feels ready to start shivering. Quickly he starts to move, paddling silently from the shallow end to the seven feet of water masquerading as the “deep” end.

Alexei divests himself of excess clothes and follows, hopping in with a shocked gasp at the chill.

Kent laughs under his breath. “Too cold for you?” he asks. “Feels fine to me.”

“Am  _Russian_ ,” Alexei drawls. “This like hot tub.”

Kent laughs again, keeping his voice down, hoping the nearby drone of the highway and the occasional overhead roar of a jet plane will swallow it. Small waves lap at him as he swims, creating ripples in the pool and a barely-there susurration of water.

He hears Alexei moving nearby. The water sits at almost a foot below the rim of the pool, blocking out a lot of the light and making them mostly invisible to anyone looking across the open deck.

“You vacation?” Alexei asks. He’s close enough for Kent to hear him, but not close enough to crowd him in.

“Yeah,” Kent replies. “With family. You?”

“No. Is... is funeral.”

Kent chokes on chlorine. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“Is fine.” From the tone of his voice, it’s anything but. “Is my cousin. She’s have cancer.”

“ _Fuck,”_ Kent repeats. His shitty family drama suddenly seems weak in comparison. At least they’re all alive. “I’m so sorry.”

“Is fine,” Alexei repeats.

“When’s the funeral?” It’s probably an inconsiderate question, but hell, neither of them is trespassing a motel pool at two in the morning because they’re feeling polite.

“Today,” Alexei says. “Was nice. Everyone say nice thing.” His voice sounds choked, there in the dark. “Coffin really small. I’m surprise.”

Kent imagines a Davie-sized coffin and feels gut-punched. “How long are you in Vegas?”

“Don’t know. Mama is stay here for look after her sister. Papa is go home soon. He says I go with him, don’t need stay here.”

“Which do you want to do?” Kent asks, because nobody ever asks him that.

Alexei is quiet for a moment. “I want stop exist,” he says. “Not like... like die, just freeze. Life is running fast and I’m tired.”

The water and the moon’s blue glare are cold, but Kent’s chest feels hot with a flood of,  _God, me too._  “Yeah,” he says. “I get that.”

Alexei hums noncommittally and ducks underwater. Kent squints but can’t see him. It’s like the black water swallowed him. He stops swimming and glances down, suspicious, but there’s no tug on his leg or hands reaching somewhere inappropriate. 

Alexei breaches suddenly with a gasp a few feet away. His profile is delineated in the piss-yellow glow of the parking lot lights. Kent carves his gaze over Alexei’s big nose, round chin, tall forehead, and lush lips, and as Alexei wipes his hair from his face with one hand, Kent thinks,  _Yeah, I’d kiss him._  He’s never kissed a boy before. Wanted to, Christ, wanted to a lot, but never tried.

“How long can you hold your breath?” he asks. “You were down there a while.”

Alexei shrugs. “Don’t know. Minute, maybe? Two?”

“Wanna see who can hold their breath longer?”

So they find out. It’s  _fun_. Kent used to do this with his friends, and then with Davie in summers past, but not lately. He and Alexei go to the shallow end, because Alexei doesn’t want to waste oxygen on treading water. The first time they try, Kent takes a big breath and holds onto it, which just makes his chest feel about to pop the longer he stays down. He surfaces a few seconds before Alexei.

“Again,” he says, panting, and smiles at the grin that lights Alexei’s face.

They go again, and again. It gets harder to keep his lungs calm while he holds his breath. But he keeps at it. Every time he and Alexei surface, gasping for air and smirking at each other, Kent feels lighter. Less likely to cry, more likely to laugh. By round five he’s feeling dizzy and his skin is tingling with goosebumps. 

“Again,” he says, and they go again.

The next time Kent comes up for air, he’s too lightheaded to think properly and inhales a mouthful of water. It sends him coughing violently. Alexei, having already surfaced, pounds him on the back until Kent waves him off.

“I’m good,” Kent says, sounding hoarse even to himself. “Just—wrong pipe.”

“You not careful,” Alexei chides. “Dumbass.”

And that just makes Kent laugh. It hurts his chest to do it. But fuck, it feels good.

Alexei rubs Kent’s back until he stops coughing. That feels good, too. Alexei’s hand is warm and wide and softened from the chlorine. Kent wouldn’t mind it touching other places, wouldn’t mind if Alexei took liberties and stuck it down Kent’s boxers to grip his ass.

Kent ducks his head to scoop a mouthful of water, then spits it in Alexei’s face.

Alexei sputters and exclaims something garbled—probably Russian. He wipes his face with a look of betrayal that sends Kent giggling, but only until Alexei splashes him in the face.

“-------!” Alexei tells him, and backs up a bit to splash him again. Kent returns fire and it devolves from there. They send wave after wave at each other, water flying everywhere, until Kent’s eyes are stinging and he’s laughing and choking in turns. Alexei tries to swim away and Kent chases him, whisper-yells playful insults. Alexei kicks water at him and Kent ducks it. He sinks under and tries to grab Alexei’s legs in the dark.

Suddenly, Alexei’s hand grabs Kent’s arm and hauls him up.

“The fuck—”

Alexei slaps a hand over his mouth. “Shhh! ------!”

Kent goes still, or as still as he can while treading water. Then he hears it: footsteps.

“Shit,” he whispers. “Shit, shit.”

Alexei takes his hand from Kent’s mouth but doesn’t let go of his arm. He pulls Kent to the edge of the pool, tucking them into the deep shadows at the lip. Kent’s legs are tired of treading but he doesn’t dare grab the edge, lest the tips of his fingers give them away.

The footsteps draw closer. And closer. Kent is trying to breathe as quietly as he can through his nose.

And then the footsteps stop, just outside the pool’s fence. Kent waits for...something. A flashlight, a voice, someone to come in.

But instead, he smells cigarette smoke.

 _Christ_ , he thinks, relieved beyond measure. It’s just a guest coming out for a smoke. He can barely see Alexei’s face, but when their eyes meet, he can tell that Alexei is having the same thought. They grin at each other, slightly manic, a shared feeling of,  _I thought we were busted!_

It takes seven long minutes for the smoker to finish their cigarette. Kent starts shivering while they’re waiting. Alexei notices and comes close, rubs Kent’s arm and shoulder in a futile attempt to warm him up, and leans in to whisper in Kent’s ear. “No meat.”

Heat floods Kent at the feeling of Alexei’s mouth so close. “What?”

Alexei squeezes Kent’s arm. “Why cold. No meat.”

Kent is on his high school hockey team, he is  _not_  scrawny. “Shut up.”

Alexei squeezes Kent’s arm again, teasing, and pulls back so Kent can see him smirking.

Fuck you, Kent mouths at him, which just makes Alexei grin wider. Maybe it’s Kent’s imagination, but he thinks he can feel the warmth of Alexei’s body in the water. They’re so close. In the shadows, Alexei’s face is barely an outline, but it’s still pretty, his eyes crinkled at the edges and sparkling, his mouth...right there. Kent could lean in and kiss him. He wants to be brave enough to do it. He’s never kissed a boy before and he wants to fix that, right now, wants Alexei’s easy warmth imprinted on him, something he can’t take back that’ll stay with him forever, a part of tonight that he’ll always know really  _happened_.

Alexei is watching him carefully. He looks unsure, and surprised, and maybe unnerved. Kent drops his eyes to Alexei’s mouth—no longer smiling, but neither pinched nor frowning in disgust. Kent licks his own mouth, then meets Alexei’s eyes again, and inches closer. Alexei’s eyes are wide but he doesn’t move away. His fingers are tight on Kent’s bicep, just waiting.

The sudden grind of shoes on gravel makes them both jolt. The smoker has finished the cigarette and is putting it out. There’s a brief pause, as though the smoker is taking in a last look of the landscape, and then their footsteps are retreating, heading back to the motel.

A door clicks open, then closes. Kent and Alexei are alone again.

Kent isn’t breathing. Alexei is breathing too fast. They’re still looking at each other, and close enough that Kent can feel the puffs of air on his cheek and see the blotchy red blush on Alexei’s neck and face. Kent leans in. Alexei doesn’t move.

Kent kisses him. Alexei stops breathing. The kiss is warm and tastes like chlorine. It’s just a brush of lips, Kent pressing in and Alexei keeping still, and only lasts a moment. Kent pulls back with his heart pounding hard enough to hurt. Alexei’s eyes are still wide, his mouth parted. He looks dumbstruck.

“You okay?” Kent manages, and now his heart is in his throat. Did Alexei even want that? Kent’s suddenly terrified of having forced something unwelcome.

Alexei takes a shuddering breath, blinking hard, and his hand spasms on Kent’s arm. He swallows and then smiles. Astonished, but happy. “Yeah, okay,” he says. He lets go of Kent’s arm and reaches down with both hands, back curving and body sinking briefly while he wrestles with something Kent can’t see. And then—oh, holy shit. Alexei tosses his swim trunks over the lip of the pool.

“Skinny dipping,” he says, blushing so hard he’s almost a different color, but smiling.

Kent strips off his boxers and throws them on top of Alexei’s trunks. “Race you to the steps.” He takes off without waiting, paddling as fast and as quietly as he can. Alexei huffs something in Russian and swims after him. Kent thinks he’s going to win when a hand grabs his ankle and yanks him under.

When he surfaces, Alexei is ahead.

“Cheater,” Kent accuses when he catches up.

Alexei sits on the steps and smiles beatifically. “Go again?”

“Fuck you, yes, we’re going again.”

They go again. And again, and again. Kent is exhausted when they finally stop, and his shivering is long gone. He hasn’t felt Alexei’s skin again since having the hand on his leg. He’s trying not to think about his dick swinging free in the water, nor the fact that, if he tried, he could probably sneak a peek at Alexei’s dick. It turns out that as brave as he was in kissing a boy, he’s still pretty fucking scared of the full reality of another naked dude.

Which is fine. He got a kiss. He can’t go around knocking down all his milestones in one night.

When they stop racing and collapse on the pool steps, panting, Kent smiles at Alexei and gets a smile back, and that’s good, too.

“What time is it?” Alexei asks.

Kent shrugs.

Alexei cranes his head to look at the motel, and the neon-bleached sky beyond. “Think maybe I go back, before mama and papa awake.”

Kent’s heart sinks to his stomach. 

Alexei looks at him again. “You, too?”

Kent sighs. “Yeah, probably.” He’s got his knees pulled to his chest and he stares at his toes through the water. “It’s a miracle nobody’s noticed I’m gone.”

“You stay with you mama and papa?”

Kent nods. “And my little brother. Family vacation, you know,” he says, more bitterly than he means to.

Alexei slides down to sit next to him, though not close enough to touch. “Family is mean?”

“God, I wish. No, fuck. No I don’t.” He chews his lip.

Alexei moves over until their shoulders brush.

“Nobody talks,” Kent mutters. “About how everything’s wrong. Mom and Dad are avoiding each other but they make us pretend it’s fine, drag us out for holidays and this stupid family vacation like we’re still.” His throat feels tight. “Like we’re happy. Nobody’s happy. We’re all fucking miserable and they won’t let us admit it.” Tears are gathering in his eyes, hot and stinging with salt, and he hides his face in his knees. “I wish they’d fight. I wish they’d yell and throw things and get divorced and be done with it.”

Alexei wraps his arm around Kent’s shoulders. Kent keeps his face in his knees and sucks in deep breaths until he has the tears under control. He hasn’t cried about this since he was fifteen. He’d been alone then, muffling his face in his pillow so the other boy in his room at the hockey summer camp wouldn’t hear. He likes this better, with a comforting weight around him and the unspoken assurance that it’s okay to cry.

“Sorry,” Alexei whispers. “About family.”

Kent lifts his head and wipes his eyes. “I’m sorry about your cousin.”

“Me too.” Alexei’s voice sounds watery. His jaw is clenched like he’s fighting it.

Hesitantly, Kent rubs the arm that Alexei still has around him. “You probably really miss her.”

Alexei squeezes his eyes shut and nods. “She’s  _ten,”_  he breathes, and hiccups. “Is so  _stupid_.”

Kent doesn’t wait for the waterworks, he just pulls Alexei in until his face is buried in Kent’s shoulder. Alexei grabs onto him with both hands and shudders through silent sobs. Kent rubs his back and strokes his hair and wonders if Alexei has been holding off crying about his family tragedy, too.

It takes Alexei longer to collect himself. It’s not a surprise; Kent’s hurt is a dull ache that he’s used to carrying around. Alexei’s is fresh, still open. He’s still working through the shock of being cut so deep.

“Sorry,” Alexei says when he finally pulls away.

“God, don’t be. Please don’t be.”

“...Okay.” Alexei rubs a finger under Kent’s eye. “Face is messy.”

“Yeah, yours too.” Going back to the motel is the last thing Kent wants to do, but he knows they have to. The night won’t wait forever. “Let’s do one more lap around the pool, then go in?”

“Okay.”

The swim slowly. They talk softly about things of no consequence: school and sports and internet memes they both know. Kent says he plays hockey and is pleasantly surprised that Alexei does, too.

They finish their lap far, far too soon. Then they’re left sitting on the steps again, working up to saying goodbye.

“We left our shorts on the other side of the pool,” Kent realizes. “Who’s getting out first to grab them, you or me?”

There’s a pause. “Same time? I don’t look your dick if you don’t look mine.”

Kent swallows a joke about size insecurity, because if it turns out Alexei is brave enough to suggest they compare, Kent will  _not_  be able to follow through on that.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

They get out. They walk around the pool, pick up their shorts, and pull them on. Kent does  _not_  make a single peek at Alexei’s dick. But he still blushes to the roots of his hair.

The next step for Kent is pulling dry sweatpants over dripping boxers, and a t-shirt over a wet chest. Everything feels itchy and tacky.

Alexei comes over and drops a motel bathroom towel on Kent’s head. Kent rubs his hair dry and gives it back. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.” Alexei uses it on his own hair. His swim trunks are sticking to his legs and his t-shirt is clinging to his chest. Even with the obvious proportion issues due to adolescence, he’s somehow even hotter with his clothes back on. Possibly, this is because Kent doesn’t feel as much like a pervert when he lets himself look.

Alexei catches him, and blushes.

“God, that’s cute,” Kent says before he can think about why he shouldn’t. Alexei cried on his shoulder, but that’s a different kind of intimacy than flirting.

Alexei blushes harder. “What’s cute?”

It doesn’t  _sound_  like Kent’s compliment is unwelcome. “Your face. Going red like that. It’s cute.” He ducks his head, draws a breath, and takes a chance. “Can I get your phone number? Maybe text you, sometime?”

When Kent looks up, Alexei’s expression is shuttered. Not a good sign. Alexei glances at the motel, then at the pool. He thinks about it for a long time.

“Yes. Okay,” Alexei says at last. “But. You can’t send—um, I don’t know English. Is... sexy message,” he finishes, so quiet that Kent can barely hear.

Kent quickly shakes his head, his cheeks already getting hot. “I’m not gonna sext you. Promise.”

“Then, it’s okay.” Alexei holds out his phone. Kent takes it, puts in his number, and gives it back. Alexei sends him a text, and when Kent’s phone pings with it, he saves the number into his contacts. He  _almost_  saves the number as “Pool Boy,” but goes with “Alexei.” He’s not interested in having to explain that inside joke to anyone ever.

Alexei is still looking at his phone with trepidation, like giving Kent his number is a risk he’s afraid of taking. Guilt and uncertainty are starting to claw at Kent’s stomach. “We don’t have to trade numbers,” he says. “I’ll delete yours, if you want. You never have to talk to me again. It’s fine if this is a one-time thing.”

Alexei’s head jerks up. “No, no. I want—” He glances around, like he’s checking for witnesses, and takes Kent’s hand to pull him a few feet to the table with the umbrella, like he thinks it’s gonna block someone’s view if they happen to look out their window. It’s paranoid in the extreme. Kent’s head spins with wild explanations as to why. But it all blows away when Alexei kisses him, firm and hot and open-mouthed.

This is  _not_  Alexei’s first time kissing a boy, Kent is certain.

“Why the  _fuck_  do you have to live in Russia?” Kent asks when they part. Alexei’s hands are on his hips and Kent is gripping Alexei’s shoulders like they’re the last tether to reality he has left. It sure feels that way. “Why the fuck do I have to live in Sacramento?”

“Sacra...what?”

“California.” Kent kisses him again. Alexei kisses back, just as eager. Oh god, Kent likes that, he likes that so much. “How far is California from Russia?”

“Fourteen hours.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kent groans. “Fuck everything.”

Alexei squeezes his hips. “Can text. Maybe Facebook.”

Kent sighs and leans his forehead into Alexei’s chest. “It’s probably for the best,” he admits. “I’ve never dated anyone before. Not really. So I have no idea what I’m doing. I mean, in relationships and in general. I don’t even know where I wanna go to college.” Or if he wants to go to college at all. Maybe he’ll take a year off, or try a technical school. He’s not anticipating that conversation with his parents. “And long distance, across the world... I’ll screw it up. I know I will. I don’t want to do that.” He’s known Alexei for one night and he already can’t stand the thought of losing him.

“...So, maybe we friends?”

Kent looks up. “Is that okay?” He’s so fucking scared it won’t be okay.

Alexei smiles. “Is best. I think so, too. We try friends first, so we know we can do.”

“Awesome.” It’s a smart plan and Kent is thrilled with it. But he can’t help wanting a final taste of Alexei’s mouth. “Friends,” he agrees. “Starting tomorrow, we’re friends.”

Alexei notices the direction of Kent’s gaze. “Yes. Friends, starting tomorrow.”

“Good. Tomorrow.” Kent kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, until his mouth is tingling. Until Alexei is burned into Kent’s memory, something to keep and long for until he can have this again.

They hold hands as they walk back to the gate. Kent starts to climb over, but Alexei stops him, and then turns the handle. The gate swings open.

Kent stares, mouth gaping. “It was fucking  _unlocked_?!”

Alexei bites his lip to hold back laughter.

“It was  _unlocked_ ,” Kent groans. “Oh, god. You’ll never let me forget this, will you?”

“Nope,” Alexei says, popping the ‘p’ like he’s particularly pleased with himself for getting to use that little tidbit of English slang.

“Fuck my entire life.”

Alexei closes the gate behind them. Then, carefully, he unlaces their fingers and drops his hand to his side. “You okay walk back?”

Back to reality. He’s going to be exhausted tomorrow. “Yeah. You?”

“I’m okay.”

“Okay.” They’re both stalling. “Thanks, by the way. For listening to my shit.”

“I’m happy for listen,” Alexei replies. “Thank you, for... for kiss me. I’m want, but, I’m coward. Never try.”

“Well, the next time you see me, feel free to try. Try as much as you like.”

Alexei smiles, embarrassed but genuine. “Okay. I remember.”

“Good.” A yawn is threatening to emerge. Kent squashes it down. “Goodnight, I guess.”

“Yes. Goodnight.”

“Text me.”

“You, too.”

They part, walking in different directions to different ends of the motel. Kent feels the space between them stretch, like taffy. He keeps looking over at Alexei walking away. Twice, he sees Alexei looking back.

It’s almost a disappointment when Kent sneaks into the motel room and finds everyone asleep. He doesn’t want to get in trouble. But just because he spilled his guts to a sympathetic ear doesn’t mean he isn’t still sick of silence.

He takes off his boxers in the bathroom and goes to bed with just his sweats and t-shirt on. Davie doesn’t stir as Kent slips into bed, not even when Kent fumbles twice—noisily—with his phone charger as he plugs it in.

It takes a minute for his phone to charge up enough to turn on. There’s already a message waiting.

_hello, kent. it’s alexei._

Kent smiles, lies down, and types back.

_hi, alexei. it’s kent._

**Author's Note:**

> This was a purge of about two days worth of anxiety-fueled sleeplessness. Writing is good like that.
> 
> I'm still on [tumblr](http://punmasterkentparson.tumblr.com/).


End file.
